Read Updraft for Free Online Page A

close.
    â€œWe are never going to finish,” I said. We’d miss the wingtest. I’d lose my best opportunity to avoid another confrontation with Singer Wik. And even if we were to finish in time, we’d have no chance to study. One look at Nat’s creased brow showed he was worried too.
    â€œWhat if we toss everything?” Nat raised an eyebrow. “It would be faster. He’s mad, right? He won’t miss any of it.”
    I looked more closely at Tobiat. He wasn’t mad. His skull was dented on one side, as if he’d hit something at great speed and lived to forget the fall. His skin was frost-marked where he’d left it bare in the wind. Scars rippled across his face and back, and several bones looked to have been broken and rehealed as they lay. He was more crooked than straight. It must have been very painful. Still, he was aware of us. He’d covered himself a bit better with his rags than before. He gripped the cloth tightly. He was in there, somewhere. We couldn’t throw his things down like he wasn’t.
    â€œTobiat?” I said in my softest voice. “We have to clean four tiers, fast, or we’ll never be allowed to leave.”
    He looked at me. “Leave?”
    â€œYes, we’ll leave when it’s clean.”
    The hermit reached out a claw and hooked a finger around one of my cleaning rags. He lifted it gingerly and dipped it in the bucket we’d been using to hold rainwater. So he knew how to do it. Soon he was heaving trash over the edge of the balcony with us, yelling, “Good-bye, good-bye!”
    The sun had dipped towards the clouds when the ladder clattered against the tier, finally. Tobiat disappeared. I looked around. The space was clean, but it had taken all day. Three more tiers to finish by the wingtest felt impossible.
    A stone fruit pit bounced off my shoulder and rolled across the balcony. I chased it down before it could stick to the newly cleaned tier. Sidra and Dojha from uptower circled and swooped just out of my throwing range.
    Once Ezarit and I moved uptower, Sidra had become coldly polite in flight class. She’d grown much warmer to Nat. Since Allsuns, he’d found himself at the center of a swirl of brightly colored wings. He looked amused to see them here.
    â€œDoes stink down here,” Sidra said. “You were right, Dojha. So far downtower, we’re bound to get hit with a bucket’s worth of foul if we stay too long.”
    Dojha blushed. “We wanted to see if you two needed anything from flight.”
    â€œSince you’re going to miss the last classes before the wingtest,” Sidra added.
    Sidra’s wings shone with decorative thread. Between batten sections, panels had been dyed the color of flowers: red, blue, purple. Hard to miss. Sidra caught me sizing up her colors and grinned at me.
    â€œMy father says you got off easy.” She sounded like our Magister, strict. Scolding. “Lawsbreaking. Bringing shame on the tower just before Allmoons. The guard said you were playing with lenses on your balcony when it came. Did it run away because you sang to it?”
    Sidra had the prettiest voice in flight. When she sang Laws, everyone remembered the words. I was not so lucky.
    I pulled back into the shadow of the tier and held my mouth shut tight.
    Dojha turned her head sideways as an updraft brushed her wingtips. “Let’s go, Sidra. Dinner.”
    â€œRight,” Sidra said. “See you at wingtest, I hope.” She waved to Nat, and I bristled. Then they were gone.
    Nat gathered our buckets and rags. The back of his neck was bright red.
    I reached for the ladder, but Tobiat rushed up, nearly bumping me off the ledge. “Payment,” he said, and held out his hand.
    â€œWe can’t pay you. We don’t have anything,” Nat said, frustrated.
    But Tobiat’s hand wasn’t empty.
    â€œLook, Nat.”
    Tobiat held a pile of bone chips, as filthy as